Project Veritas: It wasn’t just a bartender behind the Romney 47% video

John SextonPosted at 1:21 pm on October 27, 2016

Remember the Mitt Romney 47% video? That video was shot by a bartender at the event using a camera phone. But according to the latest Project Veritas video, that’s not the whole story.

Back in 2013 Reuters published a story in which the bartender, Scott Prouty, explained he was just a regular guy who brought his phone to work one day hoping to get a picture of Romney:

“I didn’t go in there with a grudge against Romney. I was more interested as a voter,” Prouty told MSNBC.

Mother Jones also confirmed that Prouty was the person who taped the video.

He described himself as a “regular guy, middle class, hard-working guy” and was tending bar at the event which donors had paid thousands of dollars to attend…

He said he had no contact with the Obama presidential campaign over the tape.

In the latest Project Veritas video, Scott Foval, former Field Director of Americans United For Change, tells a PVA reporter there was more to this story. It turns out cell phones weren’t allowed at the event but one was smuggled in by an attorney and given to the bartender in order to make the recording.

“Bob [Creamer] got ahold of our guys who did the original insertions back in the 2000 and 2004 campaigns against Bush where they were inserting people and interrupting his fundraisers and rallies,” Foval says. “And then, I don’t know if you remember, well from, they are the ones who negotiated to get that lawyer in in Florida who recorded the 47 percent video,” he continues.

“Wait, I thought that was a bartender,” the undercover PVA reporter says.

“It was actually a lawyer at the event,” Foval says. He adds, “The lawyer took his phone and had the bartender walk around with it and set it up.” “It was a whole coordinated operation to get the phone in because they had take away all the cell phones from all the staff and so what they did was set it up in the room,” Foval continues.

Asked the name of the lawyer, Foval says he doesn’t know. “I have no idea who it is but they, the people who do the operations, they have a team of about 25 folks that this is what they do,” he says.

Obviously none of this changes what was said in the video but it does change pretty significantly the perception of how that video came about. If Foval is telling the truth, then this wasn’t some blue-collar bartender who happened to bring a phone to work. This was a “whole coordinated operation” designed to get a camera in the room for just this purpose.

So far as I can tell, Scott Prouty hasn’t commented on this new version of events. Also it’s worth noting that, at the time Prouty came forward, Mother Jones confirmed he was the person who shot the video. Did they know about the lawyer and the whole operation to get the phone into the event? Here’s the PVA clip: